Foundation Category Descriptions

Global Miami Plan Foundation Category Descriptions

MPF I – CompositionCollege Composition focuses
especially on helping students learn and apply rhetorical knowledge, methods,
and strategies. Students analyze
and construct arguments using rhetorical inquiry; understand, refine, and
improve their composing practices; develop critically aware strategies for
reading and interpretation; and explore and use alternative modes of
exploration and expression. A key
purpose of this foundation is to teach students to deliver writing in a variety
of contexts, including digitally networked environments. The essential
skills students develop in composition courses help them in their academic work
at the university but also in their civic, social, and professional endeavors.

MPF IIA – Fine ArtsCourses in this section
prepare students for global engagement as practitioners, creators, advocates,
and patrons of the arts. The
courses foster the pursuit of creative and scholarly inquiry by extending artistic
traditions, while embracing a culture of innovation and change.

MPF IIB – HumanitiesCourses in the humanities contribute
to the advancement of cultures. These courses engage students through scholarly
investigation of ideas, texts, and people who shape or have been seen to shape
human cultures. Students develop skills in literary, historical, cinematic,
philosophical, and linguistic analyses while exploring their own place and
potential influence in the world. Promoting creative thinking, critical
reasoning, and ethical understanding, humanities courses enable students to
interpret local and global issues from diverse perspectives and develop
respectful and effective ways they might respond to these issues.

MPF IIC – Social ScienceCourses categorized as social
science investigate human behavior, social relationships, and/or the
interactions of people with their cultural, social and political environments.
Students in social science courses examine a variety of social phenomena
including specialized human communities, political processes and structures,
interpersonal and intercultural relationships, economic behaviors,
psychological phenomena, and the relationships that discrete human populations
have with other subnational, national, or international entities.

MPF IIIB & C - Global Courses and ClustersThese categories comprise
courses or a series of courses focused on themes or issues relevant to the
globalized society in which we all live, asking us to situate subject matter
and skills relevant that subject in terms of their global implications. Through their work in G-Courses or
G-Clusters, students develop and exercise the ability to communicate
and act respectfully across linguistic and cultural differences; explore and
understand their place and influence in the changing world; determine and
assess relationships among societies, institutions, and systems in terms of
reciprocal - though not necessarily symmetrical - interactions, benefits, and
costs; describe the development and construction of differences and
similarities among contemporary groups and regions; and identify and analyze
the origins and influences of global forces.

All MPF IIIB Global Perspectives courses must meet the goal to devlop and exercise the ability to communicate and act respectfully across linguistic and cultural differences (the A - goal), and at least 2 of the following goals:

b. Explore and understand place and influence in the changing world

c. Determine and assess relationships among societies, institutions, and systems in terms of reciprocal – though not necessarily symmetrical – interactions, benefits, and costs

d. Describe the development and construction of differences and similarities among contemporary groups and regions

MPF IVB – Physical SciencePhysical
Science comprise the disciplines that study the nature of energy and the
inorganic world. It is traditionally subdivided into four general areas:
chemistry, physics, astronomy, and earth sciences.

MPF V – Mathematics, Formal
Reasoning, TechnologyAll courses
in this area involve mathematical reasoning. This reasoning could either be
problem solving and pattern finding at the inductive level, or formal and
abstract reasoning at the deductive level, or a combination of both forms of
arguments. In all courses, students’ abilities to develop logical arguments are
strengthened and improved. The courses may also provide opportunities for the
students to explore the role of formal reasoning in history, society, and the
modern world, and to reflect upon its use in formulating well-founded, ethical
decisions.

Technology Requirement: Courses in the technology group
should introduce the technical professional’s methodology, including the
evaluation of empirical data, problem recognition and definition, and the
application of scientific principles. Although skills are included, the primary
emphasis should be on developing an awareness of technology’s impact on
society.

Mathematics Requirement: Courses in this group should introduce logical and systemic
methodology used by mathematicians to examine and explore concepts, such as
quantity, space, probability, structure, and the study of motions and shapes of
physical objects. Courses may include theoretical or applied studies of
statistics, calculus, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.

Formal Reasoning Requirement: Courses in this group should provide a formal introduction to
logic and methodologies used in deriving conclusions. Students will explore
concepts of truth, proof, meaning, and their role in informing and influencing
our perceptions, imagination, thought processes, and learned experience.
Courses may also include studies of the use of language and reasoning to
develop the “what” and “how” of artificial intelligence.

Cultures RequirementThese
courses use the United States
and/or other regions of the world as points of departure to encourage
students to view the diversity of societies and the issues raised by their
diversity. Diversity is broadly defined and may include disability, sexual
orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, language or class, but is certainly not
limited to these groups. In addition to acquiring knowledge about cultural
diversity, students will examine
the nature of societies’ ideas concerning others, how ideas about others are
developed, the significance of these ideas when interacting with others, and
the importance of analysis and evidence when making judgments.

Historical PerspectiveCourses that
meet this requirement explore particular historical contexts to help students expand their understanding
of how we humans have acted and could act, of how we made decisions in
different situations, and how we can interpret the same event in different
ways.

Miami Plan (prior to Fall 2010) Foundation Category Descriptions

MPF I - CompositionCollege Composition focuses especially on helping students
learn and apply rhetorical knowledge, methods, and strategies. Students analyze and construct
arguments using rhetorical inquiry; understand, refine, and improve their
composing practices; develop critically aware strategies for reading and
interpretation; and explore and use alternative modes of exploration and
expression. A key purpose of this
foundation is to teach students to deliver writing in a variety of contexts,
including digitally networked environments. The essential skills students
develop in composition courses help them in their academic work at the
university but also in their civic, social, and professional endeavors.

MPF IIA – Fine ArtsCourses in this section prepare students for global engagement as practitioners, creators, advocates, and patrons of the arts. The courses foster the pursuit of creative and scholarly inquiry by extending artistic traditions, while embracing a culture of innovation and change.

MPF IIB -
HumanitiesCourses within this section focus on fostering the
development of literary, historical, philosophical, and/or linguistic analysis
within the context of the liberal education experience. In these courses
students will think about how the human record has been shaped, and why it
takes the forms that it does, interpreting cultural artifacts by asking not
just what they say but how. Students will explore and critically analyze
cultural information from a variety of perspectives.

MPF IIC - Social
ScienceCourses categorized as social science investigate human
behavior, social relationships and/or the interactions of people with their
cultural, social and political environments. Students in social science courses
examine a variety of social phenomena including specialized human communities,
political processes and structures, interpersonal and intercultural
relationships, economic behaviors, psychological phenomena and the subnational,
national, or international entities.

MPF IIIA - US CulturesThe U.S. Cultures requirement
encourages students to view the diversity of society and the issues raised by
our diverse society. Diversity is broadly defined and may include disability,
sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, language or class, but is
certainly not limited to these groups. In addition to acquiring knowledge about
the cultural diversity within the United States, students will examine the
nature of our ideas concerning others, how our ideas about others are
developed, the significance of these ideas when interacting with others, and
the importance of analysis and evidence when making judgments.

MPF IIIB - World CulturesCourses fulfilling the World
Cultures requirement focus primarily on content and perspectives from either,
or both, western or non-western civiliations. Courses make comparisons across
the world, within regions of the world, or a single country other than the
United States. Courses currently fulfilling
Miami Plan for Liberal Education Requirement IIIB are offered by departments
and programs including: art, anthropology, foreign languages, geography, history,
music, philosophy and various interdisciplinary programs.

MPF IVB - Physical SciencePhysical Science comprise the
disciplines that study the nature of energy and the inorganic world. It is
traditionally subdivided into four general areas: chemistry, physics,
astronomy, and earth sciences.

MPF V - Mathematics, Formal Reasoning, TechnologyAll courses in this area
involve mathematical reasoning. This reasoning could either be problem solving
and pattern finding at the inductive level, or formal and abstract reasoning at
the deductive level, or a combination of both forms of arguments. In all
courses, students' abilities to develop logical arguments are strengthened and
improved. The courses may also provide opportunities for the students to
explore the role of formal reasoning in history, society, and the modern world,
and to reflect upon its use in formulating well-founded, ethical decisions.

Technology RequirementCourses in the technology
group should introduce the technical professional's methodoloy, including the
evaluation of empirical data, problem recognition and definition, and he
application of scientific principles. Although skills are included, the primary
emphasis should be on developing an awareness of technology's impact on
society.

Mathematics RequirementCourses in this group should
introduce logical and systemic methodology used by mathematicians to examine
and explore concepts, such as quantity, space, probability, structure, and the
study of motions and shapes of physical objects. Courses may included
theoretical or applied studies of statistics, calculus, arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, and trigonometry.

Formal Reasoning RequirementCourses in this group should
provide a formal introduction to logic and methodologies used in deriving
conclusions. Students will explore concepts of truth, proof, meaning, and their
role in informing and influencing our perceptions, imagination, thought processes,
and learned experience. Courses may also include studies of the use of language
and reasoning to develop the "what" and "how" of artificial intelligence.